The impact of lisbon treaty on the European Union foreign policy actorness: The case study of Arab-Israeli conflict

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2018

Öğrenci: ESMA YAĞMUR SÖNMEZ

Danışman: ÖZLEM TÜR KÜÇÜKKAYA

Özet:

The objective of this thesis to evaluate the impact of Lisbon Treaty on foreign policy actorness of the EU. Within the context of historical evolution of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, four actorness criteria of recognition, authority, autonomy and cohesion are main instruments of this thesis to investigate the foreign policy actorness of the EU. Considering the fact that the Lisbon Treaty has been framework of the most comprehensive institutional changes serving to the aim of having an EU foreign policy, it is chosen as the point of comparison. Hence, in this thesis it is analyzed whether the promising institutional changes of the Lisbon Treaty about developing a coherent and autonomous European foreign policy have really contributed to EU’s actual foreign and security policy actions. In order to build this analysis on a solid ground, the consistency between EU’s foreign policy performance in the Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Lisbon Treaty changes is tested as a case study. As a result of the analysis, this thesis supports the realist perspective on the EU actorness in the literature by arguing that the EU is not able to gain international actorness through the Lisbon Treaty. The major reason for this failure is the inefficacy of the Lisbon Treaty amendments to provide an EU foreign policy, independent from the member state policy preferences.